What is it? It's a revolution that has come about to feed the survivors of the Brisbane floods. It was initiated by my friend Danielle Crismani (@digellabakes on twitter) who needed to do SOMETHING to take her mind of her boys being stranded in the Lockyer Valley (with her mum, whose property was affected by flooding - they are all safe). She came up with the idea of baking some relief for the State Emergency Services volunteers who were sandbagging around Brisbane.
Word quickly spread - via her blog Digella Emporium and via twitter - and now it is bigger than Ben Hur!
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| Baking with friends - in 4 hours we made 1 veggie slice, 1 veggie and bacon slice , 24 carrot muffins, 2 date and walnut loaves, 2 gf chocolate cakes, 3 banana cakes, 3 loaves of sandwiches, 1 huge ANZAC slice |
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| Egg and dairy free date loaves, gluten free carrot muffins, veggie and bacon slice |
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| My first baked relief - 120 pork sausage rolls |
I'm now starting to coordinate stage 2: ADOPT A FAMILY {I'm calling it stage 2, but it's probably stage 4, 5 or 6...}.
This involves matching families in need with people who are prepared to feed them a meal a week - possibly for up to a year. Ideally this will include a meal for the host family where applicable.
If you want to be involved please email me mel@melkettle.com.au with #bakedrelief in the subject line.
If you want to cook for a family I need to know:
- your name, email, mobile phone number
- suburbs you are prepared to travel to with meals
- how many people you are prepared to feed in a family
- what days you can provide meals
If you would like to register for a weekly meal I need to know:
- your name, email, mobile phone number, address where you are staying
- how many people need to be fed (and this should include your host family - they will need a break too!), broken down into adults and children
- any dietary requirements
- any other information I might need to know (access, preferred days, etc)
I'm hoping to be able to start matching families the week of 31 January 2011.
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| Devastation at Fig Tree Pocket - day 3 post-flood. These friends will be lucky to be back within a year. |
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| Friend's kitchen. It was one of the most beautiful and practical kitchen's I've ever seen. |
UPDATE: Wednesday 19 January
THANK YOU to everyone who has registered to Adopt a Family. We are compiling a database and will match with families once we have been advised who needs support. As we need to work with official channels for this, it may take a couple of weeks. Please be patient. We hope to update everyone who has registered during the week of 31 January.
UPDATE: Tuesday 22 February
Thanks very much for your interest in the Adopt a Family program. At this stage we have put the project on hold. We have had a lot of people register interest, but have had difficulty in finding families who need to be adopted. Should this situation change, we'll be in touch.
However there are many other ways you can support the flood relief, including:
- Register to cook for families with organisations such as www.floodaid.com.au and www.volunteeringqld.org.au
- Check back with www.bakedrelief.org to see what is happening
- Donate foods that are needed - in particular non-perishable food such as rice, pasta, tinned fruit/veg/tuna/beans/salmon, coffee, tea, milo, UHT milk, bottled drinks
- Donate other goods that are needed - including toiletries for men, women and children (razors, shaving foam, shampoo, conditioner, soap, new nappies etc), and cleaning products (washing powder, sponges, bathroom cleaner etc)
- Talk to your employer and see if they can help
- Support our local farmers eg Lockyer Valley by buying local produce. You can do this through supporting organisations such as Food Connect (www.foodconnect.com.au). This can be an ongoing commitment.
- Don’t let this fade from view.
